Louisa Hall - Speak

I’ll admit that my reaction was bad. It wasn’t necessary for me to storm out to the living room in a dramatic demonstration of anger. Ineffectively, I tried to slam the sliding door to our bedroom. I see that this was overdramatic, but I hoped you’d come and retrieve me. I honestly believed you’d come and retrieve me, if I could be patient enough. In all the years of our marriage, we’ve always slept in one bed .

Needless to say, you didn’t come get me. I drank two beers, pacing back and forth between the record player and the door to your office. Trying not to give in. And now here I am, back in our bedroom. Sitting in the armchair where once I imagined you nursing our child. We decided against it. Perhaps that was wrong. Childless, there’s less to pin us here in the present .

If I want to win you back, I should be proving my ability to think backward, like the ideal machine you’ve imagined. Fine, Ruth. I lack the integrity to resist you, though I still think there’s something false about abandoning our situation to focus instead on a country we left. Nevertheless, here I go, reciting a story I don’t really believe in. Following the script I’ve been given .

In the years leading up to the war, we lived in a wealthy neighborhood. My family owned a whole floor in our building. My father was a bit overbearing, yes, but I had a comfortable life. I enjoyed the company of my friends. I read books in my bedroom, curtains swishing in my tall windows. On summer evenings I walked beneath leaves. I lived in a pleasant version of the unpleasant country I lived in .

The only chink in that pleasant armor was the result of the shuffling that happened at schools. Without explanation, I was transferred to the new school for Jewish students, on Kaiser Street, near Alexanderplatz. There, I was exposed, for the first time, to the underfed Jewish children who came to school dressed in rags. I was made keenly aware of my good fortune. The degree of my father’s success, the suffering I had avoided .

Something flickered on in me then. I’m telling you, Ruth. You may smirk to hear it — easy, belated sympathy from someone who never actually suffered — but something flickered on. An awareness of the real world I lived in .

Then we procured papers. It all happened quickly. When it was time for my family to leave, I was whisked off somewhere to avoid the departure. I wasn’t present. I never saw a suitcase. The only farewell scene in which I played a genuine part occurred at the school on Kaiser Street. Wearing a little suit, I was taken to say goodbye to the principal, who responded politely, speaking to me as if I had suddenly become older than he, promoted in age by my good fortune. He said he was glad to know I was leaving .

I remember his hands; I realized they trembled. When he walked through the hallways, he clasped them at his back. I saw him once walking to school, wearing a felt hat with a feather, leaning forward a little, squinting as if he’d glimpsed a figure off in the distance. In his youth, we all knew, he’d been a great violinist. Now, principal of a school for doomed children, he stood before me, hands hanging helplessly, wishing me all the best on my journey .

I was ashamed of myself. For lack of anything better to offer, I promised to send a crate of American oranges as soon as I was settled in my new country. What an idea! What good were oranges to that man? And anyway, it wasn’t true. I never sent them. I’d learned my lesson well by that point. Why make a bad situation worse by calling it names to its face?

Maybe it’s that quality in me that makes your words dry up in your mouth. I’ve seen it happen, I’m not unaware. But should I apologize for the fact that I’ve learned to live in the present? I was raised on tidy departures, on the importance of a clean slate. I’m an eternal optimist. Sometimes, I admit, when I see you sink into one of your moods, I want to shake you out of your stupor .

There were times early on in our marriage when you started to say how you felt and I had the impression you were softening, right in front of my eyes. Losing your form, becoming warm wax. I feared for you. I feared I would lose you. I hated the fact that those years still wielded power over you. Sometimes, watching that transformation, I experienced a little revulsion. “Get with the program,” I wanted to snap. “All that’s behind us. We’re here now, get with it.”

That’s how I felt. Why try to conceal it? An unpleasant truth, I can see that, but at least I’m being honest. I was raised to believe that, like wild dogs, it’s best not to look loss in the face. If you don’t want it to tear you to pieces, you just have to putter right past, humming a little song to yourself .

And is that what’s upsetting you, Ruth? That I believe in forging ahead? That I’ve forgotten the soldiers, the papers, the names of my schoolmates? Fine. Lay it all on me. Tell me you think I’ve forgotten too much, with my one-foot-in-front-of-the-other approach. Be honest and say you want me to build a computer that’s the opposite of your husband, a machine with endless memory .

It’s possible, as you know. You’ve done all the research. Before long, computers will have the capacity to store far more information than we can. But I’d remind you: one day that machine will remember your words, but it won’t ever feel them. It won’t understand them. It will only throw them back in your face. Gifts returned, you’ll realize they’ve become empty. They’re nothing more than a string of black shapes, incomprehensible footprints on snowbanks .

I’ve forgotten things, yes. I’ve tried to put my best foot forward. I don’t believe there’s any use in refusing to live. You may hold this against me, but then I’m made of organic matter. We’ve walked beneath the same linden trees. When I say something, I mean it, whether or not it’s the right answer. When I tell you I love you I mean it .

Alan Turing

c/o Sherborne School

Abbey Rd., Sherborne

Dorset DT9 3AP

12 March 1928

Dear Mrs. Morcom,

I am writing to tell you that you ought to come immediately. Your son is very ill. I feel it is important to consider the possibility that this is the end. I know that Mrs. Harrison at the sanatorium has already written to tell you Chris is not well, but I do not feel certain that she has properly emphasized the importance of your immediate return. Chris has also perhaps underemphasized the extent of his illness. I might venture to say that he is sometimes a little too brave. For this reason, Dr. Stevenson does not seem to believe that the issue is extreme. But I am telling you now that Chris does not look well to me at all. He is coughing terribly and he has in several instances coughed blood. I am sure that is a distressing thing to hear, but I only want to be honest.

In short, Chris is much more ill than Dr. Stevenson believes.

Also, I have had a premonition that he will die. Just before he took ill, we had a concert at school. There were some visiting singers. Chris sat just down the row from my seat, and I watched him throughout the whole concert, full of foreboding. I said to myself, “Well, this isn’t the last time you’ll see Morcom.” Later that night, I woke up at a quarter to three and saw the moon setting over Chris’s house. I couldn’t help but think it was some kind of sign. It was at exactly that time that Chris became ill, and was taken to the sanatorium.

I realize this sounds quite extreme. I only tell you this because Mrs. Harrison reports that you will wait for your husband to finish his business in India and I think you should not.